Seib & Wessel: What We’re Reading Tuesday

A look at how House Speaker John Boehner handled the showdown over government funding shows that, torn between a conservative wing adamant about dismantling the new health law and Democrats unwilling to revisit a law that they already have passed, Mr. Boehner consistently sided with his conservative rank-and-file. “If you really want to fight, you’ve got to put everything on the table,” he told fellow Republicans Monday. [WSJ]

Polling history suggests that a negative turn in public attitudes towards Washington and the economy triggered by a government shutdown will be short-lived, Gallup’s Elizabeth Mendes says. Besides, Americans already view Congress so poorly, there’s little room for perceptions to worsen. President Barack Obama, though, may have more to lose because, while diminished, his popularity is higher than Congress. [Gallup]

President Obama, in an interview taped Monday, rails about Republicans in Congress, says ending “gridlock and stalemate” on fiscal policy would relieve the burden on the Federal Reserve to pursue such extraordinary monetary policy and insists government can do something to restrain the forces of inequality. [NPR]

John Dickerson (@jdickerson) writes that in the great showdown debate, Republicans are split into two camps, “those who would like to fight now over funding the government and those who would like to fight later over a debt limit increase when the Treasury Department hits its borrowing limit Oct. 17.” The “fight later” group thinks public opinion is more on their side in refusing to raise the debt ceiling than it is on shutting down the government in a budget fight. [Slate]

Republican insiders estimate that about 30 House Republicans believe so strongly that Obamacare must be stopped or slowed down that they are driving the much larger group of 233 GOPers there, writes conservative commentator Byron York (@ByronYork). “Another 20 to 30 GOP members sympathize with that position but might be willing to compromise, except for the fact that they fear a primary challenge from the Right,” he says. [Washington Examiner]

President Obama has “not only been taken hostage by the worst of Washington … but he seems to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome,” writes Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier). The president needs to help the GOP work its way out of the hole it has created for itself, he says. [National Journal]

Molly Ball (@mollyesque) explores the striking shortage of discussion between the two parties, or between Congress and the White House, in the current fight over funding the government, because President Obama and House Speaker Boehner “aren’t compatible,” while House Republicans “are negotiating with themselves in public by passing a series of doomed bills and furiously trying to deflect blame.” [The Atlantic]

Eleanor Clift (@EleanorClift), after 50 years at Newsweek, recalls starting as a secretary, advancing to a reporting job when women rebelled at their lack of opportunities, enjoying a long tenure when the magazine spared few expenses on its reporters or their travels, and enduring until “the magazine that I knew is long since gone.” [Daily Beast]

A sign of legislative breakdown: Congress passed joint budget resolutions—the basic documents that are supposed to guide its handling of spending issues–in all but three years from 1976 until 2010, but it hasn’t passed one through this traditional process since. [WSJ]

Just 17% say they are basically content with the government; 26% overall say they are angry at it, while 51% feel frustrated. [Pew Research Center]

In a poll that coincides with lawmakers’ struggle to keep the government running, just 10% approve of the job Congress is doing; 87% say they disapprove. [CNN]

Four people disappeared near the U.S. border in Mexico over six days, on top of the 26,000 the country reported went missing between 2006 and 2012. [Al Jazeera]

Around 5,200 Britons convert to Islam each year, and the total number of British converts is around 100,000, a University of Wales Trinity Saint David researcher calculated. [Economist]

Male tennis players are more than 25% more likely to challenge judge’s line calls than their female counterparts, a Sports Illustrated study found. [Slate]

Despite claims that Amazon has ousted the traditional bookstore model, the number of retailers belonging to the American Booksellers Association continues to rise – up to 1,632 this year from 1,401 in 2009. [Quartz]

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